Sexual politics in the cell

Sex creates a conflict of interests. Most organisms have elaborate defences against genetic invasion and disease, yet sex demands that the genes of two individuals mix. Why, then, isn't the rejection of genetic material by sex cells more common? Studies of the sexual encounters of slime moulds and fungi are beginning to provide some clues. Researchers are finding that, when two sex cells fuse, the outcome may depend not just on the compatibility of the genes stowed in their nuclei, but on the behaviour of another group of organelles in cells, known as mitochondria.

Mitochondria have long been regarded as the powerhouses of the living cell. Yet although energy production is their forte, there is growing evidence that their influence in cellular affairs runs much deeper. Mitochondria contain their own sets of genes (genomes) and their own machinery for making proteins. More-over, because mitochondria lie at the hub of a ...

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